We may not know how much GearVR will cost, but we're reasonably sure that Archos is already trying to undercut Samsung and Oculus head-mounted effort. The French company is busting out the wittily-named Archos VR Headset, a Rift-like device that's compatible with any smartphone that measures between 5 and 6-inches. The kicker here, of course, is that the device will retail for £25 in the UK, roughly converting to $40, which would put it well beneath the - frankly insane - $200 figure an unnamed Samsung official told VentureBeat during New York Fashion Week. If you're interested in trying one out, it'll be available at some point in November, and we hope that the GearVR isn't too far behind. Slideshow-233229

If you're wondering when home automation might tip into the Walmart-level mainstream, here's a sign: Archos' Smart Home starter kit is now on sale. Along with two cameras, two movement tags and two weather tags, they're throwing in a controlling tablet, all for $250 -- or $25 each for the cameras and sensors. Considering the tablet, that's even cheaper than SmartThings' low-end kit. Archos says it's the first to use the Bluetooth Smart tech in connected homes and engineered it to work at double the normal distance (65 instead of 32 feet) with up to 13 devices. That'll permit it to take a photo when a movement-tagged door is opened, for instance, using its scenario editor and the Tasker Android app. Archos also has controllable plug sockets, alarm sirens, motion-detectors and even a pet tracker planned for the future. The kit should hit its online shop soon, but fair warning -- Archos is known for low-priced, but not exactly high-end goods.

When we talk about smartphones with buttons on the back of the case, most people's thoughts turn toward the LG G2. But now the French electronics outfit Archos has decided to follow in LG's footsteps with the 64 Xenon, a 6.4-inch phablet that puts both the volume and power buttons on the rear side. Packing a 1,280 x 720 IPS LCD display, dual-SIM slots and HSPA+ radios, it's clear that this is designed to square up against the likes of the Galaxy Mega, but with a much lower price tag of 200 euros (around $275). Slideshow-183911

When it comes to smartphones, hugs and all-you-can-eat buffets, more is better, right? That's why we had to sit down and play with Archos' 50c Oxygen. The gassy, Jelly Bean-running handset is one of the first to use MediaTek's 1.7GHz octa-core MT6592 CPU, housed behind a 5-inch 1,280 x 720 IPS LCD display. Archos has found room for dual-SIM slots, 1GB RAM, 8GB of onboard storage and a microSD card slot, while the 2,000mAh battery should last you at least a day.Slideshow-183909

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Tue, 11 Mar 2014 10:34:00 -040021|20847353http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/20/archos-new-tablet-smartphone-mwc/%3Futm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%26ncid%3Drss_semi
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Even though Mobile World Congress 2014 doesn't officially kick off until February 24th, Archos has gone ahead and revealed some products it will be bringing to the event. For starters, there's the 80 Helium 4G, an 8-inch, £230 tablet that packs a Cortex-A7 quad-core processor, 4G/LTE and Android 4.3. Additionally, Archos is also introducing a 5-inch, dual-SIM smartphone called 50c Oxygen, which features a 720p IPS display, MediaTek octa-core CPU, Jelly Bean (sorry, no KitKat here) and a 6.77-mm thick body. Archos' 80 Helium 4G and 50c Oxygen won't launch until later this year, but the company is indeed planning to show them off in Barcelona -- and you know we'll be there.Slideshow-180938Slideshow-180941

Archos is summoning 2011 with the specs for its new Neon tablet line.The slate trio represents the low-end of Archos' lineup, and doesn't impress in the specs department.

Falling under its Cobalt and Titanium series of tablets, all three tablets come sporting a quad-core A9 processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of onboard storage and microSD expansion. The Neon line includes the 9-inch Archos 90 Neon with 800 x 400 display, 9.7-inch 97 Neon with 1024 x 768 display, and the 10.1-inch 101 Neon with a 1024 x 600 display.

The 9.7-inch tab comes with a 2-megapixel rear-facing cam, and all three come rocking forward-facing cams. Pricing and availability has yet to be announced, but we expect these three to come soon and under $200 apiece.

Yes, this is another post about the internet of thingsblorg -- you know, that terrible buzz phrase for this new and actually exciting era of connected gadgets. Except this time, it's brought to you by Archos. The French outfit's branching out from its traditional portfolio of Android smartphones and tablets with a new Smart Home solution -- an ecosystem that's similar to Smart Things. The platform, which Archos announced just prior to the new year, incorporates a tablet-like gateway and various sensors that users can place in and around their homes for remote monitoring.

Archos is gearing this whole system more toward convenience than security and its array of Bluetooth sensors proves this point. Smart Home revolves around Archos' gateway, a 7-inch tablet that gathers and manages a feed of all the data from its various Bluetooth sensors; sensors designed to monitor video, motion, weather and electricity. Though the initial $200 kit comes with just the gateway, one video camera and one motion sensor, users can go out and buy additional sensors piecemeal for anywhere from $14 - $50 (e.g., the weather sensor costs $30). Slideshow-160168

Archos is coming at the burgeoning smartwatch space in a different way. Rather than hedge its bets on a single device offering, it's planning to release a trio of smartwatches for every end of the consumer spectrum. The water-resistant smartwatches in question don't have specific branding attached as of yet -- that will presumably come before launch later this summer -- but they are easily distinguished by screen size and display tech used.

Unlike the half-baked, it-can-sorta-do-everything Galaxy Gear, Archos' smartwatch line is hewing more closely to the Pebble route. These Android- and iOS-compatible devices are designed to supplement your smartphone experience, not replace it. And so, users that buy in will have access to notifications (i.e., SMS, emails, text, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), media playback controls and, of course, a clock. What they won't be able to do is snap photos on a low-resolution camera, talk into their wrists or reply to messages. Slideshow-160169

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

It's not all smartwatches and weather stations for Archos this year at CES. The company may be diversifying its portfolio a bit at the show, but it's still got its hands in some tried and true categories. For starters, there are the new 45 and 50 Helium 4G handsets. Both run Android 4.3 on a 1.4GHz quad-core processor, with upcoming upgrades to KitKat (version 4.4.2). The 45 is, naturally, the lower-end of the two, featuring a 4.5-inch 854 x 480 display, 4GB of storage and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, priced at $200 unlocked. The $250 50 Helium 4G, meanwhile, bumps things up a bit, with a 5-inch 1280 x 720 display, 8GB of storage and an 8-megapixel rear camera. Both will be hanging out at the Archos booth in Vegas.

There's one more interesting nugget in today's jam-packed Archos press release. Alongside the home tablet, scale, weather system, activity monitor, et al. is a very brief mention of a smartwatch -- a "selection of" smartwatches, actually. There's not much info here, save for the fact that at least one of the wearables will hit an under-$50 price point. The company is also apparently comparing the iOS/Android-compatible line to a familiar wearable, referring to it as "pebble-like" in the included press material (lower case, mind). If we had to venture a guess, we'd say the similarity comes from what looks to be an e-ink or e-ink-like display, but it looks like we're going to have to jump on a plane to Vegas to find out for sure.

Archos looks to be getting in on the New Year's resolutions a bit early. The company clearly couldn't wait for CES to spill the beans on its 2014 lineup -- at least so far as connected devices are concerned. The device maker wants to make you a part of its internet of things, previewing a slew of devices, including an activity tracker, scale, blood pressure monitor, weather station and tablet. There is, predictably, not a whole heck of a lot of information on any of the products -- in fact, the company's managed to shove mentions of all of the above into a single press release issued a little more than a week out from the big Vegas event. Archos is collectively referring to the lineup as its "connected objects" -- devices that are monitorable in real-time via Android and iOS apps.

There's not much to say about the 7-inch Smart Home Tablet, at the moment. The company's positioning the Android device as a "gateway" to connected home actions, like turning on lights and recording video with a mini-cam when a motion sensor is triggered. CES will also see the debut of a new Weather Station from Archos, offering up indoor and outdoor temperature, humidity, CO2, pressure and other readings, along with national and historic levels for comparison. The company's Connected Self app, meanwhile, was built to work with a handful of new health devices. The list includes a connected scale that tracks body fat, an activity tracker that measures footsteps and burned calories and a blood pressure monitor that comes with an irregular heartbeat detector.

Even though it is a pretty populated world already, Quechua wasn't going to let that interrupt the (rugged) vision for a smartphone of its own. The company, which is known for selling mountain sports gear and equipment, has partnered with Archos to introduce the Quechua Phone, a 5-inch handset with Android 4.1. Aside from packing ruggedized traits such as IP54 certification, Quechua's Phone also features a Qualcomm 1.2GHz, quad-core chip, 1GB RAM, 4GB of internal storage (expandable via microSD), a 5-megapixel rear camera and one rather beefy 3,500mAh battery. Other details like the screen's total pixel count or when/where it'll be up for grabs are still mum -- but we do know the Quechua Phone will be priced at €230 (around $310) once it eventually becomes available.

When Archos brought the original 101 XS to the US, we chastised it for pricing a basic tablet at $400; was the included keyboard worth that much? There won't be similar grousing over the 101 XS 2. The company has announced that it will launch the second-generation 10-inch device in the US this December for a budget-friendly $279 with the keyboard in the box. As in Europe, the Android 4.2 slate is a big step up over its ancestor with a quad-core 1.6GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, 2GB of RAM and an IPS-based 1,280 x 800 display. If you find that the Transformer Book T100 and other keyboard-equipped tablets are out of your price range, you'll only have to wait a few weeks to try Archos' cheaper alternative.

Archos has revealed not one but four budget smartphones with humble specs to join its tablets in the Titanium line, making us want to break into song. The new Android Jelly Bean devices are named after their screen sizes -- models 40, 45, 50 and 53 have displays that measure 4 (800 x 480 resolution), 4.5 (854 x 480), 5 (960 x 540) and 5.3 (854 x 480) inches, respectively. They have dual SIM slots that allow them to support 850/900/1800/1900MHz GSM, as well as 900/2100 WCDMA bands, and they connect to the internet via HSDPA+/HSUPA.

On the inside, you'll the find the phones running on 1.3GHz dual-core MTK6572w processors with 512MB of RAM and, sadly, only 4GB of storage that makes their microSD card slots more valuable than ever. While the devices don't boast any fancy add-ons, they at least come with 5-megapixel rear and 0.3-megapixel front cameras. Availability seems up in the air at this point, but the phones' prices will range from €100 ($137) to €160 ($219) when they come out. Those who'd like to know more about the company's new set of quadruplets can head past the break for more info.

That was fast -- just days after a retailer's leak, Archos has announced the GamePad 2. As hinted earlier, the second-generation gaming tablet is a big improvement over the original. The 7-inch slate is now better-suited to modern games through its sharper 1,280 x 800 IPS display, a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 chip and 2GB of RAM. Archos has also improved the control responsiveness, upgraded to Android 4.2 and stuffed in a bigger battery for extended play sessions. The GamePad 2 reaches Europe by the end of October for €180 ($243), and will be available in the US sometime during the fourth quarter for $200.

While Archos gave a sneak peek at its Platinum lineup a month ago at IFA, it's finally ready to spill the beans now. The company has released not just one, but three new tablets in three different sizes -- 8-inch, 9.7-inch and 10.1-inch. All of them come equipped with 1.6GHz quad-core processors, high-resolution IPS displays, dual-band WiFi, 8GB built-in storage, Bluetooth and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. The 8-inch model has a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution, the 9.7-inch has 2048 x 1536 and the 10.1 model has 1280 x 800. The smallest of the lot also only has 1GB of DDR3 RAM while the other two have 2GB each. As a bonus incentive, the 10.1 model is the only one with GPS and a 2-megapixel camera on the front; the rest have a 0.3-megapixel front-facing cam. Other specs that are the same across the three are a microUSB port, a 3.5mm headset jack, a microSD card slot, a mini HDMI output and a 2-megapixel rear camera. As is often the case with Archos, the prices are very competitive: the 8-inch model will retail for $199.99, the 9.7-inch for $269.99 and the 10.1-inch model for $299.99. We're not sure if that's enough to sway consumers away from morewell-knowntablets, but it's a start.

Even in the age of the NVIDIA Shield, dedicated Android gaming handsets are still a bit of a rarity, which is all more of a reason to take a gander at the leaked GamePad 2 from Archos. The device first reared its head at the FCC, and thanks to an online retailer -- which has since scrubbed all references to the product -- we're now treated to a press shot and a smattering of technical specs for the successor to the original GamePad. This time around, it's purported to sport a slightly more dense 1,280 x 800, 7-inch IPS display, along with a 1.6GHz quad-core CPU and 2GB of RAM. In addition to the previously available 8GB model, a new 16GB version is said to be in the works, and in both cases, the GamePad 2 will retain a microSD expansion slot. There's no word yet on pricing or availability, but you can bet that we'll hear more from Archos soon enough.

With Archos, when it rains, it pours. We popped by the company's booth at IFA this morning to take a peek at its customary deluge of devices. In addition to a number of handsets, Archos was showcasing a whole pile of tablets -- though we've opted to focus on some of the more interesting ones, namely the 101 XS, ChefPad and ChildPad. And we have to say, while the company hasn't always been known for sexy devices, all of the tablets we looked at had surprisingly nice builds. The company also gets some credit for seeking out some interesting niches within the tablet space.

The 101 XS 2 is certainly the most mainstream of the three. The Gen11 device is probably most notable for its included keyboard dock, which magnetically attaches to the front of the slate, protecting its screen when not in use. When you're ready to go, pull off the thin cover, unfold the stand on the dock and stick the tablet into its port, propping it up in landscape mode.Slideshow-83285

The rest of us haven't even started packing for IFA and yet here's Archos, spilling the beans about what it'll be showing off in Berlin next week. As ever, the company's got lots to talk about. Lots. The lineup includes a bunch of tablets and a handset, all running Android. At the top of the tablet heap is the company's Platinum range, which includes aluminum-clad slates running quad-core processors, Android 4.2 and displays with up to 2,048 x 1,536 resolution. The 101xs2, not part of the Platinum line, also has a quad-core processor inside, along with front-facing stereo speakers and a magnetic keyboard. Then there's the Xenon tablet series -- three devices that the company is positioning as "cheaper than Apple or Samsung Wi-Fi tablets." For gamers, the company will be trotting out a currently spec-less GamePad 2, and for kids, Archos is going to show off the skinned and parent-friendly ChildPad.

There are a few more details available for the Archos 50 Oxygen, a flagship handset that features vanilla Android 4.2, a quad-core CPU, 16GB of storage and a 13MP rear-facing camera. The company also used the opportunity to tease a "unique Smart Watch concept." How is it unique? We can't really tell you. More information on that and the rest of the above coming soon, we're sure. Hey, the company has to save something for IFA, right?

Archos said in its fiscal results that it would launch five devices at the IFA expo next month. Well, there's a chance you're looking at one of them right now. An Archos 101 XS 2 tablet has surfaced at the FCC, with a lone photo showing many design elements lifted from the original 101 XS. It's not just more of the same, though: we spot a microphone alongside the familiar keyboard connector, along with a rear camera (the first edition didn't have one). The filing doesn't provide clues regarding any upgrades to the performance or Android software, but we may learn about those in just a few weeks.

Just in case that recently announced ChefPad wasn't suited to your tastes, Archos is now introducing a smaller, not-so-kitchen-friendly Android tablet, the Xenon 80. Naturally, the main highlight of this 8-inch slate is that it boasts 3G capabilities, and the company's quick to point out it's SIM-unlocked. Archos also endowed the Xenon 80 with some decent specs, including a vanilla flavor of Google's Jelly Bean, an unnamed Qualcomm quad-core CPU, a 1,024 x 768 IPS display and 4GB of internal storage (expandable to 64GB by way of a microSD slot). And as with other recent Archos tablets, the Xenon 80 carries the proper Google Play credentials, making it easy for you to have access to all your favorite apps. It'll cost a mere $200 when it hits shelves in June, which is on par with competing offerings. Now, whether it's worth taking the plunge, well, you'll have to make that call for yourself.Gallery-188606

Does your kitchen need a 9.7-inch Jelly Bean tablet to call its own? No, it certainly does not. But if your budget can accommodate such a device, it might look just like the Archos ChefPad, "the perfect tablet for the cooking enthusiast." Under the splash-resistant case, you'll find a standard suite of tablet specs. There's a 1.6GHz dual-core CPU, 1 gig of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, and front- and rear-facing 2-megapixel cameras, along with a pair of speakers and a built-in mic, making the device suitable for both playing back cooking lessons and recording your own. In addition to that red silicone case, you'll receive a dedicated stand to match -- both will ship in the box, along with the tablet, for just $210 this June.

While Archos has long held dreams of expanding into smartphones, we've seen it run into its fair share of roadblocks along the way. Thanks in part to a sharpened corporate focus, that vision is at last becoming real with the company's first, honest-to-goodness smartphone range. The 35 Carbon, 50 Platinum and 53 Platinum all cater to the budget, carrier-independent crowd with common foundations of unlocked 7.2Mbps HSPA 3G, dual SIM slots (only one being 3G) and stock Android. We also see a rather skimpy 4GB of storage, although a microSD slot on each phone helps make up for the difference.

What you're mostly paying for is performance and screen size. The 35 Carbon ships with an HVGA 3.5-inch screen, a single-core 1GHz Snapdragon S1, 512MB of RAM, VGA cameras and Ice Cream Sandwich; move up to the 50 or 53 Platinum and you'll get their respective 5- and 5.3-inch qHD screens, a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Play, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front camera and Jelly Bean. No, we're not bowled over by the performance any more than you are -- but the respective contract-free prices of $100, $220 and $250 may have at least some trying Archos' first effort, even if the company's late May launch will only include Europe at first.

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!